Reviews with content warning for Sexual content - Sluit alle deuren

Lock Every Door is my first Riley Sager book and it's probably not my last.
I kept rotating on my rating for this book between a 3 and a 4. In StoryGraph I have the real rating, but here I chose to bump it up to 4.
Lock Every Door is about a girl named Jewels, who is down on her luck, but somehow lands this sweet house/apartment-sitting job at a famous building called the Bartholomew. She's dreamed of this place since she read a book about it when she was a child. It seemed like luck was on her side, until a new friend at the Bartholomew disappears. She finds there's a lot more to the building than an oppulent dream.
It's hard to say too much in this review without ruining anything, so I don't know if I will say too much.
The book is a standard thriller/mystery with some basic characters and semi-predictable plot. I wish there was more to the characters and Sager really settled into them. The book is a lot about the setting, which is fun, but at some point there's a theme brought up that could have been explored better with some extra character development.
The theme being-something viewed as such a rich thing (the Bartholomew), held a lot of evil; but the poorest viewed thing held the real value (Jewels--kind of on the nose right?)
Anyways, fantastic narrator and a fun overall story. I recommend if you are into those type of books with a very plot-driven story.

Content Warnings

jessspeake's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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rochelleisreading's review against another edition

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dark hopeful mysterious sad tense fast-paced

4.0

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lulusreads's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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singalana's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.75

Things are not going well for our main character, Jules. She lost her job AND her boyfriend on the same day, and she has no money and no family she could reach out to. When she’s offered a job as a housesitter in the famous Bartholomew-building, she accepts, even though the job seems too good to be true.

Despite the strict rules, she gets acquainted with the other housesitters and a few of the residents. She has started to feel uneasy about the building, and when one of the other housesitters disappears, she is determined to find some answers: is she in danger too?

Despite the fact that her sister has disappeared, Jules seems to get very quickly involved in the other housesitters' disappearance. It's hard for the reader to get emotionally invested in the character's disappearance or understand why Jules is so invested in it.

This book has gothic undertones, but I wish that the uneasiness would have been explored more slowly. There are a few moments the book captures the Gothic feeling, but it passes way too quickly. Maybe this book could have done with a little less investigative twists and turns and a little more atmospheric horror. And I wasn’t a huge fan of how we are shown glimpses of how things are now and working our way to find out how Jules ended up there.

For New Yorkers, everyone seems to be surprisingly friendly and helpful in this book.

Things seem to move both too fast and too slow in this book. It certainly is a page turner and I was interested enough to see how it ends, but… More on that in the spoilers.

Spoilers!

The characters feel a bit archetypical and shallow, and like I said, as I was not very invested in the characters, I wasn't as invested in the story as I would have liked. Especially towards the end we get some very clichéd villain monologue.

And of course she manages to throw herself into one of the villain’s (Nick) arms, who is shady from the beginning. The character’s description takes an interesting turn when she finds out he’s involved in the strangeness of Bartholomew: at first he’s depicted as attractive, and then almost nerdy and creepy. Initially the role of a sketchy male suspect is played by Dylan, whose description changes in a similar manner, but to the opposite direction. Even though I have to admit that I kind of liked Nick's ending.

I didn't guess the mystery behind Bartholomew, even though I probably should have. I guess I liked it more when it was Satanic sacrifice. Organ harvesting for the rich seems cheap and boring. In hindsight, the twists were predictable and the book doesn't do much that feels original.

Also I kept expecting to get something out of Jules' sister's disappearance, but apparently it was there only to provide a tragic backstory.

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chasingpages1's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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